Two Yuba City gang killings described in court

Bullets weren't the only thing in the air six years ago during the height of the Norteños versus Sureños gang war in Yuba City, according to testimony in two murder cases Friday in Sutter County Superior Court.

Francisco Villanueva, a Sureños member, was having a relationship with a woman from a Norteños family when he was hit by multiple shotgun blasts while sitting in a car in the parking lot of an apartment building in the 500 block of Gray Avenue, a law enforcement officer testified at the preliminary hearing for the man charged in the killing, Robert Juan Salazar.

The woman, Monica Cervantes, had gone inside when she heard three or four shots and came out to find Villanueva dying, said former Yuba City Police Department Detective Dan Garbutt, now an agent with the state Department of Justice.

"They shot me. I'm gonna die," were Villanueva's last words, Garbutt said.

Assistant District Attorney Jana McClung suggested in her questions to police that the Norteños — including Salazar — thought Villanueva was mistreating Cervantes.

After the all-day hearing, Judge H. Ted Hansen held Salazar to answer on charges of first-degree murder and the attempted murder of Villanueva's 6-year-old nephew, who was sitting in the car. Salazar will be arraigned June 28.

After the shooting, Salazar had his neck tattooed with the letters SK for "scrap killer," scrap being a derogatory name for Sureños. The emblem is very similar to that of the Sacramento Kings, police testified.

Meanwhile, in another courtroom across the hall, Monica Cervantes' brother, Jose Luis Cervantes, was having his preliminary hearing on a charge of killing another Sureños member, Jose Eduardo Chavez, in a car-to-car shooting April 4, 2004, in the 500 block of Garden Highway, about three weeks after the Villanueva killing.

Judge Chris Chandler held Cervantes to answer and scheduled a July 6 arraignment.

Salazar and Cervantes were both arrested in law enforcement's Operation Crimson Tide, which began in January with the aim of crippling Nuestra Familia, a prison gang said to control the Norteños. Salazar was identified as the "regimental commander" of a six-county Nuestra Familia region from Stockton north.

Yuba City Police Officer Michelle Brazil was the first to arrive after the shooting of Chavez. She testified she found him sitting in the front passenger seat of a white van, his feet on the dashboard, at a Tesoro gas station.

Chavez, who had been shot in the back, said he felt like he couldn't hear and that "everything was turning white," said Brazil.

Chavez couldn't describe the person who shot him and could only mumble in the ambulance on the way to Rideout Memorial Hospital, where he died, Brazil said.

The van's driver, Victor Lopez, said shots came from a white Buick or Cadillac occupied by three men wearing red. In a confrontation about seven hours earlier at Plumas and B streets, Lopez said, the car's driver "mad-dogged" him and brandished a gun.

In both murder cases, prosecutors are citing statements by two men with long criminal histories: Brent Baldwin, the defendant in the December 2004 shooting death of yet another Sureños member, Martin Guzman Reyes, and Jonathan Tyler Burton, convicted several times of fraud and theft.

In a prison interview, Baldwin said Cervantes and another defendant charged in the Chavez murder, Michael Anthony Mosley, bragged about shooting at a van "full of south-siders," according to Yuba City police Detective Jason Parker.

Baldwin said Mosley had a .22-caliber rifle and bragged, "Can you believe we got those fools with this?" Parker testified.

Baldwin got "consideration" from authorities for his help in both murder cases, Parker said.

Outside the courtroom, Cervantes' attorney, Kristin Cobery, called Burton "a highly motivated witness."

Burton said that when he met Cervantes and Mosley at a taco restaurant shortly after the shooting, Mosley said, "We just blasted those fools," and asked him to dispose of the gun, Garbutt testified.

Garbutt said he recorded a phone call from Burton to Mosley in which Mosley claimed credit for the shooting along with Cervantes, whose nickname is Bundy, and a third man nicknamed Gizmo.

CONTACT Rob Young at 749-4710 or at ryoung@appealdemocrat.com